Shanti-ly Lace
by Random Guise
Summary: Written as a request from user BarnMaker. Mowgli is getting more comfortable in the man village, and Shanti is there to help him along the way. Based on the 1967 movie "The Jungle Book". I do not own these characters and I haven't been raised by wolves.


**A/N: A short scene that follows the ending of the 1967 "Jungle Book" movie.**

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Shanti-ly Lace

"Make that noise again."

Mowgli acquiesced to the request and repeated his performance. "rrrrrRRRROOOAAAARRRRRrrrrr" he screamed.

"That was very scary" the young girl commented. Shanti was a young girl who was not yet of age in her village. She knew all about life there, but listening to this boy that came walking out of the jungle while she was getting water was another matter entirely. He didn't walk, talk, or eat like anyone she had ever seen before. He was cute, especially after he got all washed up and clean, but there was still something about him that was hard to define. As they lay down on the sand beside the river that ran past the village, she wondered what it must be like in the jungle. What it would be like with him.

"It isn't scary to another bear" Mowgli stated proudly. "At least I don't think it is; a bear taught me how to do that, but he was the only one I've ever met."

"Is it bear language?"

"I don't know" he shrugged. "In the jungle everyone talks like us, except they seem to sing a lot more. Kaa always uses a lot of S's, and King Louie talks in a funny way that is hard to follow - sometimes like he's just inventing words."

"It must be a very noisy place."

"The Ancient Ruins were he lived? Nah, it's just a pile of rocks now."

"No silly, I mean the jungle."

"It can be. Lots of different kinds of animals" Mowgli bragged. "Some like Colonel Hathi and his other elephant troop make a lot of noise just marching around. The wolves howl, the buzzards do something called 'barbershop', and of course there's wind and rain. Shere Khan just walks quietly on his big tiger feet except when he's bragging about being the king of the jungle."

"Wasn't that the one where you tied the fire to his tail?"

"That's the one! Boy, did he run away fast; I saw him disappear south and never saw him again."

"Yeah, I wonder if he saw all those fires they had down there; one of our neighboring villages burned to the ground when some animal ran through in the middle of the night."

"Wow, it sounds dangerous down there; more than the jungle here."

"You sure know a lot about that place. Did you always live there?"

"Ever since I can remember. Bagheera the panther says I must have come from a village somewhere when he found me while I was a baby. Then Rama the wolf adopted me in his family and I grew up with them. But they made me leave and I never went back."

"Do you want to go back?"

"Well..." Mowgli hemmed "...I did want to go back, but now I kinda like it here." Shanti smiled and blinked her brown eyes; as usual, it made him feel a little funny inside and his eye twitched a little. But it wasn't a bad feeling at all, kinda nice actually, but it was just...different.

"I'm glad you like it here. My father was a little worried when you slept on the ground."

"I never had a bed before; sometimes I slept on a pile of leaves with bugs in it." He scratched at the thought of it.

"And you ate with your hands!"

"No knives or forks or those round things in the jungle."

"Spoons."

"Right, spoons. In the jungle we don't have jobs, or schools, or taxes, or farms, or houses, or carts, or games like Pachisi, or people, or books, or writing, or..."

"You thought our written words were just 'boring pictures' and you said you could draw better" Shanti remembered.

"I didn't know they _meaned_ things. I just thought everyone was really bad at drawing." They both laughed. "I think I've learned just about everything now since I've been here. Do you want to climb out of this sand and go for a swim?" As a protection against the sun, both had piled sand on themselves from the small beach.

"I'll race you there!" she yelled as she squirmed, shifting the sand aside and jumping up before running toward the water.

Mowgli followed, but both pulled up short when a great laughter could be heard coming from the direction of the village.

"Hey Little Britches, you're missing something" one man yelled.

"Showing off your Bare Necessities now, are we?" yelled another.

Shanti brushed sand off the lace of her clothing that functioned as a bathing suit, but when she looked over at Mowgli she started laughing as well. In his haste to catch up, his loincloth had been left behind buried somewhere in the sand. He reddened and dashed the short distance to the water, diving in quickly. Shanti retrieved his clothing and took it with her out to where he stood with the water up to his shoulders.

"Don't come near me!" he warned as she got closer. Out of respect she stopped and tossed his loincloth to him, and in a moment he splashed around until he was attired again after which she continued to approach until they were face to face and only a foot apart.

"In the jungle they didn't have any clothing either" she smiled "except for you. We almost always wear clothes in the village."

"Almost always?"

"When we get older there are a few times when we don't" she blushed.

"Like when?"

"Special times." She leaned forward and kissed him.

The whole side of his face twitched for a moment and then calmed as he smiled. "I think I'm to like those special times" he said dreamily.

The End

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**A/N: This was written as a special request from user BarnMaker, whose idea was for an expanded ending of the original "Jungle Book" movie merged with the ending scene from "Along Came Polly". For the record I have only seen the original "Jungle Book" and have not seen any sequels, reboots or spinoffs.**


End file.
